


take a back seat (or play pharaoh)

by a_stankova



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Established Evil Queen | Regina Mills/Emma Swan, F/F, Internal Conflict, Kitchen Sex, Season 1, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-11-08 08:36:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17977964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_stankova/pseuds/a_stankova
Summary: Emma's sleeping with the enemy, she knows that. It's only after Graham's death that she begins to realise just how dangerous her lover might truly be.





	take a back seat (or play pharaoh)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [starsthatburn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsthatburn/gifts).



> title: 'Black Mambo' by Glass Animals
> 
> A little idea that wouldn't leave me alone.
> 
> Dedicated to Helen, my favourite writer – thank you for FLOM, SWRU, and all of your other works, both past and future.

She staggers for a few minutes along Mifflin Street, under dim lighting that seems further away than it actually is. Whiskey, in hindsight, had been an unwise choice, but she figures it can be filed away with the rest of them; besides, lack of light isn’t that big of a deal – she’s made this journey enough times now to know the route like the back of her own hand.

 

Her hand finds the same gate it always does. Despite appearances, the wood is old and dry; she can feel it splintering beneath her fingers, feel the paint chips and cracks beneath her nails, as she pushes the gate open and steps onto what can only be described as enemy territory. 

 

She’s barely knocked three times before the door is swinging open, and she’s being dragged inside by hands far stronger than her own.

 

And, shit, it really would be embarrassing how easily Emma submits to this woman, if it wasn’t such a goddamn relief to be close to her.

 

With a pleasured sigh, Emma succumbs to her desire; her eyes glaze over as a warm, taut body presses flush against her own, igniting her abdomen in that insatiable promise of infinity that never fails to surprise her. Her fingers slide exploringly through wild brunette locks as her tongue plunders the soft cavern of her lover’s mouth, reaching for the places that no-one had paid attention to before.

 

That was half the problem – Emma pays attention, strives to move in new ways, to overwhelm, to be memorable. It’s probably something that she could trace back to orphanhood, when nobody had been proud of her for anything. An issue that could be dealt with in therapy, no doubt, but that’s expensive and time-consuming.

 

Besides, Regina, as harsh and directional as she can be, makes absolutely no protest when Emma touches her like this. She too is alight, expresses her urgency by grabbing the blonde’s hips to pull her closer. This action causes Regina’s back to come into frantic contact with the kitchen counter, and when she sighs approvingly, Emma has to kiss her harder to ignore the flash of magic that she swears she can feel.

 

_Magic isn’t real,_ she reminds herself, a fierce mantra that she hears inside her skull like a war cry, even through the haze of arousal that has her mind swimming. _Magic cannot be real._

 

And yet, what else would explain the woman she’s been sleeping with?

 

Emma draws her glossy lips back and dips her head just enough to expel a wisp of warm air over the skin of her exposed neck, her irresistible pulse point. Predictably, the mayor’s breath hitches, urges Emma’s smile, urges her on in spite of the painful sense of foreboding that lingers in her gut. _Mayor, Queen, Mayor, Queen,_ it taunts; but still, Emma’s fingers long for every inch of her skin, every delicious curve. She teases, her hands barely grazing as they sweep over her bare collarbone and shoulders, eliciting a sharp whine of frustration and two frenzied hands. As she feels lips on her jawline, she feels fingernails gliding across the flesh of her exposed back, quickly so as not to miss any movement that Emma may make. They’re lazy, heavy.

 

They dig in suddenly, and Emma is reminded of a crucial fact from Henry’s book: the Queen was evil. She was the _Evil_ Queen.

 

_But magic isn’t real. The book isn’t real._

 

With one deliberate attack of teeth to the neck, Regina’s hands fly to Emma’s shoulders, clamp down there as in her shock breath escapes her. “Don’t tease,” she huffs out, which would have served more convincingly had she been in control of her breathing, and not been tugging the straps of Emma’s bra down to her elbows so slowly it could only be classed as “teasing”. Her statement evokes an amused chuckle from the blonde, who in one swift, rough move had her lover’s wrists in one hand against the cabinets above her head, and her bottom lip between her teeth.

 

“You love it,” she murmurs in a low voice, as she wraps one hand around her marked neck and once again dips her head, eyes wide and dilated at the beautiful sight of Regina’s chest. Regina moans and wrings her hands, trying to free them, her desire to touch Emma so strong a desire it glasses over her fierce black eyes. But the sheriff tightens the grip of both hands and welcomes the shiver of lust that overcomes her. She licks the material of her bra until it clings to the left peak, then releases Regina’s hands to pull her bra strap down her left arm, so gracefully it appeared choreographed. Her breast is revealed and Emma draws the turgid flesh deep into her mouth; Regina gasps, her body spasming in response. It is all she can do not to scream.

 

“Say you want me,” Emma moans, pressing passionate kisses to her throat before returning to her chest, where her tongue frees itself across her skin.

 

_You should leave. She’s dangerous. She’s the Evil Queen._

 

_But no, she isn’t, how can she be? Magic is not real, it’s not fucking real._

 

_But Graham, Emma. What happened to Graham?_

 

“I want you,” comes the sudden, breathless response, and _God_ , Emma’s never craved someone’s praise more than she craves Regina’s in this exact moment. Her head is guided back to Regina’s chest, to the breast which presently lacks attention, and she shudders when Regina’s back arches, a silent cry of delight at feeling the blonde’s soft, cool lips touching her aching body.

 

_Graham died of an aneurysm. The autopsy showed that._

 

Emma straightens back up, presses into Regina and drinks in the features of her face; her mouth, parted and waiting, her eyes, dark and predatory. She’s stunning, truly. A drug in and of herself. 

 

_Madam Mayor has everyone in her pocket. That includes the medical examiner._

 

It’s entirely possible that she’s dangerous, more dangerous than Emma can even imagine; she holds power like no other person Emma has met, wields it like a weapon that’s never fully finished developing.

 

What happens when the world falls apart, Emma wonders. What happens when someone gains ultimate power?

 

Are power and magic the same thing, or do they go hand-in-hand?

 

_Why does that matter when magic is a myth?_

 

That goddamn storybook has gotten into her head – she wishes she’d been able to resist Henry’s pleading eyes the day he’d asked her to read it. Maybe if she’d managed that, she wouldn’t be second-guessing herself, every time she pulls down the other woman’s panties and fucks her until her legs give out.

 

She kisses Regina’s temple then, holding her breath as she slides her hand down her stomach, edging lower, lower, lower, to the place she knows will be warm and wet and waiting. She’s throbbing with hunger, aglow with lust, hotter than she’s ever been and suddenly the need to know the truth is overwhelming.

 

“Tell me,” Emma breathes out, swallowing Regina’s gasp with a fierce kiss as she slips through fingers across her wet heat, urging her to spread her legs that little bit wider.

 

“ _God, yes,_ ” Regina whimpers, wrapping her arms around Emma’s shoulders, and either she’s avoiding the question or she didn’t understand it and Emma isn’t prepared to accept either scenario.

 

So, she tries again, as she forces two fingers deep inside her. “Tell me the truth,” she whispers, ignoring the fear inside her heart that she might just get an answer that she doesn’t really want.

 

She expects to be ignored, or lied to, or even kissed into forgetting what she’d asked in the first place. 

 

But suddenly her bones have gone cold, and Regina?

 

Regina is laughing.

 

Emma’s eyes shoot open synchronously with the choked gasp that overturns and dies in her throat. Her heart is in her mouth, pummelling her jaw with its rate of acceleration, and every nerve-ending in the entirety of her one-hundred-degrees-too-hot body is humming with that familiar electrical charge. Upon realising that it has happened again, she hisses through gritted teeth and narrows her eyebrows, falling back down onto the bed. “ _Dammit_.”

 

She really had infiltrated every part of her life, even her unconscious mind. Damn her. 

 

After refilling her lungs enough to trust herself to breathe, Emma slowly opens her eyes again, blinking in the darkness of her bedroom to see. What she is hoping to see, she doesn’t know. Maybe Regina in the corner, biting her lip and twirling her hair around her index finger. Mm. That could be both a beautiful and a tempting thing. 

 

But unrealistic; they had never been together in the loft, of Emma’s own stipulation. The last thing she needed was for Mary Margaret to walk in on them, although she’s sure that Madam Mayor would take some kind of sick delight in being caught.

 

(Henry says that his Mom hates Mary Margaret because she’s Snow White – Emma’s heard her with the married man, David, knows it’s anything but a fairytale.)

 

No, they always meet at Regina’s house, and always in the evening after Henry has gone to bed – one of the only things so far that they’ve been able to agree on is that he needs to be kept away from this arrangement lest it scar him for life.

 

They also agree, resolutely, that it’s the best sex either of them have ever had. Emma’s always liked having other people call the shots, especially sexually, and Regina takes charge like some kind of goddess, or dictator, or–

 

Or Queen.

 

Emma blinks, sees nothing but the wall on the opposite side of the room. Had she really only been asleep for three hours? She cranes her sore neck to the left and groans to see that, yes, she had been, and she has to get up for work soon.

 

For now, however, everything is quiet, dark, and in the dark she feels safe enough to slip her hand inside her sleep shorts, feels safe enough to close her eyes and imagine Regina crawling atop her body, straddling her waist and entwining their fingers. She allows the dizzy feeling to claim her brain and draw her teeth together quickly. A distorted murmur envelopes the air around her, and the feeling intensifies, white-hot and hazy. 

 

She grips Regina’s hands and pulls her down. Her lips should land right on hers but, of course, they don’t.

 

She opens her eyes and Regina isn’t here, and maybe that’s a good thing.

 

Because maybe, somewhere deep down, she already thinks that magic might be real after all, and the implications of what that might mean would surely destroy them all.

**Author's Note:**

> twitter: @turtledove_51 :)


End file.
